Artificial and Natural Flavors

"Tell me what you eat " Brillat-Savarin wrote in her Physiology of Taste "and I shall tell you what you are (Brillat-Savarin

.158 . In Fast Food Nation , Eric Schlosser offers his own variation on this famous aphorism "A nation 's diet can be more revealing than its art or literature " There is an obvious link between national identity and cuisine . We are a country of hamburger and French fry eaters , and the far-reaching consequences of this style of eating have not been adequately explored . Schlosser is less concerned by issues of cuisine

than about fast food 's place as a "revolutionary force in American life " According to Schlosser , McDonald 's , Burger King , et al , have radically altered American agriculture , economics and social life . It imperils American health and individual life . Why does it taste so good That taste , according to Schlosser , is emblematic of the problem Chemically enhanced food is the emblem of successes in economic and losses in culture . Nation lost health and found thousands of chemical substances enhancing food flavor

Flavor plays an increasing role in contemporary foodservice . Taste and aroma of dishes attract people like we attract fish with groundbate They trick human mind and make them think that they eat VERY TASTY food All animals avoid eat food with bad taste or smell . This is important for prevention of food-borne diseases . The most of edible plants generally taste sweet , harmful ones bitten . Human taste sensory organs called taste buds or gustatory calyculi , appear to be receptive to relatively few chemical species as tastes . This contrasts markedly with the sense of olfaction , where very large numbers of different species can be differentiated . There are currently thought to be five basic tastes (Delwiche , J . F . pp . 411-415 . The saltines is produced by the presence of sodium chloride and some other salts . Sweetness is produced by the presence of sugars . Acids make taste of sourness . Bitterness depends on presence of alkaloids and other chemicals . The fifth basic taste is savoriness or umami . It 's produced by the free glutamates commonly found in fermented and aged foods , and in the additive MSG (monosodium glutamate . Umami taste was also found in tomatoes , seafood and certain vegetables

But human taste reception is not so perfect as olfactoric . We fell "flavor " as the smell of gases being released by the chemicals containing in the meal we eat (It 's reason why cold dishes are not tasty as hot food . In his book "Fast Food Nation , Eric Schlosser wrotes : The aroma of a food can be responsible for as much as 90 percent of its taste . Physiology of taste and olfactory reception is complicated . If we will vulgarize the processes or reception and recognizing of smell we could tell that this mechanism work as biochemical key and lock . You know , neural centres of olfactory preception are located in the same part of brain where centers of memory are located . A smell can suddenly evoke a long-forgotten moment (D A . Wilson , R . J . Stevenson . Olfactory...